The present invention relates to oximetry sensors and, in particular, pulse oximetry sensors which include coded information relating to characteristics of the sensor.
Pulse oximetry is typically used to measure various blood flow characteristics including, but not limited to, the blood-oxygen saturation of hemoglobin in arterial blood, the volume of individual blood pulsations supplying the tissue, and the rate of blood pulsations corresponding to each heartbeat of a patient. Measurement of these characteristics has been accomplished by use of a non-invasive sensor which passes light through a portion of the patient's tissue where blood perfuses the tissue, and photoelectrically senses the absorption of light in such tissue. The amount of light absorbed is then used to calculate the amount of blood constituent being measured.
The light passed through the tissue is selected to be of one or more wavelengths that are absorbed by the blood in an amount representative of the amount of the blood constituent present in the blood. The amount of transmitted light passed through the tissue will vary in accordance with the changing amount of blood constituent in the tissue and the related light absorption. For measuring blood oxygen level, such sensors have been provided with light sources and photodetectors that are adapted to operate at two different wavelengths, in accordance with known techniques for measuring blood oxygen saturation.
Nellcor U.S. Pat. No. 5,645,059, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference, teaches coding information in sensor memory used to provide pulse modulated signal, to indicate the type of sensor (finger, nose), the wavelength of a second LED, the number of LEDs, the numerical correction terms to the standard curves, and an identifier of the manufacturer.